Make Up Artists

Sarah got some makeup and she shared.  Her and Isabelle had fun playing with it.  These pictures don't quite do it justice.  Isabelle had eye shadow ALL over her face with nothing on her eyelids.  Sarah had it perfectly on her eyelids and lips.  You can tell whose mom actually gets ready.




Sharon also painted nails with the new nail polish.  Here you can see Isabelle's cheeks and Sarah's perfect eye shadow. I had visions of years to come as 16 year olds.  Isabelle super excited for Sarah to do her makeup and teach her some tricks.

"My Pill!"

There is no fluoride in the water at our house, so our kids take fluoride pills.  Grandma put Isabelle to bed and then she frieked out that she didn't have her pill.  I didn't bother bringing them, so I explained her pills are in the water in Utah, just take a drink and that counts.  So she got a glass, put an inch of water in it and left it on the counter and explained to me that was her pills and no one can take them. Each night she got in her bed and then said, "Oh no!  I forgot my pill."  and would get out of bed take a drink of water and go right back to bed.  What a goof!

Christmas Warm Up

I put my memory card in the computer to empty it before Christmas and....left it there. Luckily Mike's parent's had one, but I definitely didn't get good pictures this year, big surprise.  Anyway, Christmas came in under budget, we got to stay at Mike's parents, see some of his family, and bless Luke.  A successful trip if you ask me. We had a great Christmas!  We quarantined ourselves (the kids and I) the two weeks prior so that we could possibly stay at Mike's parent's house (to the point Isabelle was literally bouncing off the walls in excitement for a drive to the post office drive through).  On the trip to Utah we got the phone call from his mom as long as there was no snot, his dad's levels were good enough for us to stay with them.  We drove down Thursday and came home Monday.  It was a super short trip...again, but Mike had to rush back for work.  Here are a few pictures. Stay tuned...more to come

I love this picture of Isabelle.  She loved her stocking stuff.


Michael was funny.  Here he is with his "dell phone" and Luke's soccer ball, "MY ball!"


And this is the only picture I have of Luke on Christmas morning...I know, I should be fired.


Mike's brother, Jeff had us.  He has made one of these wooden trains for the other siblings and I love it.  It was our year to get one.  I LOVE IT!!!!


Christmas morning in matching pj's with cousins. Sharon and Joe's family spent Christmas Eve at Mike's parent's too.  Christmas didn't happen until 7:15!  We all got to sleep in!

Yuke Dar Deat

A couple of weeks ago in church, Michael was being a typical 2 year old in Sacrament Meeting with 1:00 church and no nap...always a treat.  Luke, who normally slumbers peacefully the entire 3 hours in his car seat, was being unusually irritable.  I finally gave up trying to rock Luke back to sleep and pulled him out.  After a minute, Michael pointed, "Yuke dar deat." and tried getting in.  I helped him get cozy and covered him.  He sat perfectly still for 15 entire minutes.  He didn't fall asleep, but it was something new and entertaining and gave him some quiet time.  Since that day, I can tell he needs a nap or just some alone time and find him in Luke's car seat.  It's cute to see him.  He actually looks big in there with his feet hanging out.

Daddy Time

Every night after dinner while I do the dishes, it's Daddy Time.  This is when Mike keeps the kids away from me for at least 30 minutes, usually longer.  He flies his helicopter for them, wrestles, reads stories, or just snuggles on the couch for a TV show. It's the bliss that makes a cheerful bedtime routine possible for me.  It breaks up the "Witching Hour" (4:30-bedtime).  The latest treat of Daddy Time, is this early Christmas present from his parents.  We got a Lionel train set.  The kids LOVE it!  Mike and I love it just as much, I think.

"Ginger"

The yearly treat finally got done yesterday.  I love making our gingerbread house.  Isabelle kept calling it just plain ginger.  "Is it time to make the ginger yet?"  This year, I've had a rough time getting my act together.  Turns out I'm having thyroid craziness.  We'll get it figured out, but in the meantime, that means making the most of the few days I've been feeling normal.  It took me 4 days to get the gingerbread dough made, cooked, and then decorated.... impressively horrible, I know.  Not to mention I bought the rest of the candy I needed 2 weeks ago.  So Isabelle has been excitedly asking for 2 weeks for the ginger.  I'm glad we got to do it, I was feeling ok and we had a good time.  Turns out, it's a good thing we didn't do it earlier.  Just this morning, Michael has devoured a big chunk of the candy from off the house.

Cheeks full of candy for a pose as we work.

The final product...While Michael picks it apart as fast as his little hands can.




I LOVE traditions.  This is one of my favorites from growing up.  We always got together with the girls of our best friend family, the Smiths, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Us ladies had a blast munching and chatting.  Just as much candy made it in our tummies as on our houses.  Then our family would blow ours up on New Year's with an impressive amount of firepower from the boys.

Santa

Santa came to our ward party. Big surprise....Michael didn't cooperate, partially because Santa was "scary", and partially because it was almost 9pm. Either way, it was funny. Isabelle was SO excited to get to sit on his lap and asked for a baby (as in a doll, although she is asking about that baby sister again) and a car light for Michael. She's so thoughtful.

Luke has awoken to the world. I love 3 months when they realize they have hands and that little personality starts to come through and are all smiles. He is gradually getting less cranky too!

Pixie Dust

Isabelle and Michael are in love with Neverland. Isabelle stumbled upon "Return to Neverland" on TV recently. She fell in love. They found "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." Then Isabelle found the Tinkerbell movie and some of the other fairy movies. Isabelle had a friend give her this thing around her neck (pictured above). It's not a necklace, but it has Tinkerbell on it. She wears it and calls it her pixie dust. This is her pretending to fly with her pixie dust. On the Jake show, there is a girl named Izzy and she has pixie dust "just for emergencies." Yesterday at dinner she said she was running out of pixie dust, so of course she said, "We need to check online to see if pixie dust is on sale right now." HA! I love the world of pretend!

Disaster

Oh the disaster called family pictures...Picture this, Michael needs a nap, Luke 3 month old still on the floppy side, sluggish Isabelle, plus uncooperative Jake (he was awesome last year). Guess how good of a picture we got this year? We got a few ALMOSTS...

But mostly just a WHOLE TON of this...

Thank you everyone for not cooperating! Thank you Michael for being absolutely ridiculous! This was 4 different attempts. We put boys down for naps, tried again, gave Michael fruit snacks and a break, tried again. We tried outside. We tried EVERYTHING! If only they knew it could have been 5 min or less like last year.

Too bad we couldn't just photoshop Luke out of my 36 week belly from this one...

Something Happened

Literally overnight, Michael became attached to things. He's always liked his blanket to go to bed, but it's always stayed there with the exception of the occasional TV show or car ride. He now wants to carry it around all over. This blue dog was his as a baby. He didn't seem to ever touch it, so I put it away like a year ago. I pulled it out for Luke and he yelled, "MY DOG!" and has not let go of it since. And then there's "Cars and Mater." He doesn't say Lightening McQueen, it's Cars. He has to have all 4 things it seems all the time. The other night putting him to bed, he didn't have enough hands to touch everything while he got comfortable. He was a little frustrated he didn't have 4 hands. He tried to hold all of them in one hand. He finally settled on laying his head on his blanket and clutching it in one hand, Cars in the other hand, and Mater and Blue Dog touching him. It was hilarious! Funny kid.